


Window of Opportunity

by Pitry



Category: Terminator Salvation (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitry/pseuds/Pitry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And if at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Window of Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yukito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukito/gifts).



> This story is only compliant with the movie canon, not with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or the novels. I'm afraid keeping all the different continuities was doing my head in... but I hope you will still enjoy it, I had a lot of fun writing it!

Their steps echoed through the empty factory. Once Skynet’s biggest stronghold, the symbol of their war, the factory was now empty, and no living soul - or Machine - moved. Only their little raiding party - Kate and Star and Barnes and that’s it, because so many others were dead. There was technology there, and computers, everything they needed to rebuild their society, rebuild the world.

Everything but John, Kate thought bitterly. Her hand was sent, almost automatically, to the ring on the chain around her neck, identical to the one she still kept on her finger.

She blinked the thought away and moved forward. This was no time for sentimentality or melancholy or memories. Not here, not now, not with her team around her. 

There was a door in front of her. She signalled Star, who nodded silently and attached her small explosive to it. Five seconds later and the explosion shook the entire building. They went inside.

It took Kate three seconds to recognise the machine in the middle of the room. Another one of Skynet’s time travelling contraptions. This one appeared to be in working condition, too. She couldn’t help herself; she passed her fingers quietly, almost fondly, on the metal surface. The machine’s power source was still active, humming softly beneath her fingertips. She could almost hear the promise in the humming.

“Kate,” Barnes said all of a sudden. She turned around, all business.

“Yeah?”

“Take a look at this.”

Lines and lines of codes, schematics, notes by Skynet, and in the midst of it all - she recognised the pattern, she recognised the specific, now old-fashioned model of a Terminator it described, and she recognised the specific mould, the human on which these blueprints were based. She stared at the face of the Terminator that reflected off the screen, and for just a moment, she didn’t know the difference between the Terminator and an old friend.

The machine kept on humming softly behind her.

*******

Next to Kate, Tony’s breaths were heavy and laboured. At the beginning of the ride she thought he still had a chance, but by now, every fifth or sixth breath was actually a gurgle, and she could see a trail of blood making its way out of his mouth and onto her fatigues.

He wasn’t going to make it. With any luck, he’d live long enough to know they made it to the base, and die on her operating table.

A part of her rebelled at the thought. Luck? It would be easier if he just died now. 

Star still hadn’t given up. She was trying to wipe the blood from his mouth, sent her hand to waste precious medicine on this man who didn’t need it. Kate didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop. 

No one else was looking at Tony. Least of all John.

No; someone was looking at him, looking in fascination and horror. Marcus Wright knew that Tony was gone, even though he didn’t know who Tony was or what his injuries were. He saved her life in that last moment; Tony wasn’t as lucky, he didn’t have a Terminator hybrid who knew him and showed out of nowhere to make sure he survived. She half wanted to punch Marcus’s face, but refrained; it wasn’t his fault. Not his fault that he was a Terminator and not his fault that he couldn’t die and not his fault that, from the looks of things, he was once again resurrected or - or sent from the future. Or something. She didn’t get the chance to ask. 

John didn’t look at Marcus, either.

No, John was at the front of the chopper with Barnes, shouting orders at dead soldiers who couldn’t reply, and doing his best to pretend he had no idea what was going on at the back. 

“We’re almost there,” Star whispered to Tony, who nodded in appreciation. “Kate would fix you up in no time.” 

“She talks now,” Marcus said in surprise. Star nodded and flashed a smile at him.

“She’s not nine anymore, either,” Kate said dryly. 

“How have you been doing?” Marcus asked - Star or Kate, Kate wasn’t sure. 

Star was the one who answered. “Same. More or less. Not eating coyote anymore.”

Marcus laughed. Star smiled again. Even Tony gave a smile, which turned into a gurgle - and then he stopped breathing altogether.

“Tony!” Star shouted and reached for the adrenaline, but Kate stopped her, shook her head. 

“It won’t work,” she said. We need this for someone who actually stands a chance to survive, she didn’t say, but Star knew this all the same. She let go of the medicine, then covered Tony’s eyes with her hand, closing his eyes in one last gesture of respect, and curled in the corner.

One minute later and they made it to the base.

*****

She could see the disbelief all around them when they came back. They set out three transports, twenty five people in total. They returned five. And with the wrong Terminator, too.

It was supposed to be an easy mission; that was how John had described it, at least. Ambush a Terminator, reprogram it, and then send it back into Skynet. So easy. 

There was an ambush - they were the ones ambushed.

“They surrounded us the moment we landed,” she told Kyle quietly, when he came to check the wound in her shoulder, Barnes’ broken leg, and Marcus. “Four of them surrounded John... I thought we were dead. We’d all be dead, if it weren’t for Marcus.”

On the bed in front of her, Marcus was sitting, Star next to him. Officially, she was watching him, just in case; unofficially, Kate knew she just wanted to be next to him. Next to Star sat her own daughter, Sarah, who never let Star out of her sight, and was now looking at her new competition with interested hostility. Every instinct in Kate’s body told her she should keep Sarah well away from the - man? Terminator? - but that was not an argument she wanted to start; not yet. 

Marcus, of course, acted as if he hadn’t noticed any of that. “Perfect timing, as always,” he said in a light tone, but there was no real amusement in his voice. He looked around as if he were the shell-shocked one, as if he had spent the past six years fighting, rather than - “How did you get here, anyway?” she asked. 

“Skynet didn’t resurrect me. I was sent from the future.”

“Let me guess,” They all jumped as John entered the room. “Resurrection, reprogramming, time travel, that sort of thing?”

“That sort of thing, yes,” Marcus agreed. 

“You know, when we finally get to the future, we really should remember to _stop doing that_ ,” she said. Her eyes were still on Marcus, but she knew there was only one man in the room who understood the comment.

It did the trick. John smiled. And all of a sudden, his smile carried on and turned to laughter. Star looked at him in surprise; Sarah in amazement. None of them could remember the last time John had laughed.

His gaze fell on Kyle then, and the laughter died on his lips. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “We should.”

Kyle looked from John to Kate to John again, and for a change it was confusion on his face, instead of that damned hero-worshipping which he always followed John with. 

“Never mind,” John muttered.

Marcus sniffed audibly, and all attention returned to him. “Say,” he said, “is Blair still around?”

*****

_It’s been five months since we destroyed the Terminator. Five months since Kyle died. Half the time I think, maybe he really was completely insane. Sometimes I think I could just close my eyes and open them again and it will all have been a dream._

_Sometimes I feel like the hardest thing is to decide what to tell you and what not. And then I go over all the tapes and feel like throwing them all away. I’m recording these tapes to prepare you for the fate that awaits you, but isn’t that too much to tell? There’s some comfort in the thought you would grow to be the leader of the resistance, that you will bring humanity to a victory over the machines. For one thing, it means you will survive this war. But then, sometimes I resent it._

_You’re not even born yet, and already your future is set._

*******

“Get that son of a bitch, come on!”

“I’m _trying_!”

“No, go right, go right, go right!”

“Pick it up, pick it up, we need it - pick it up!”

“He’s behind you, turn turn turn!”

For a moment, Blair froze. She could recognise Connor’s voice, Connor’s shouts. She didn’t recognise the other voice, but it didn’t stop her from starting to run in the direction of the shouts. If the Machines managed to get in... her mind didn’t even register that she could not hear gunshots.

But the room showed a completely different picture than the one she had dreaded. Kyle and Star, standing at the corner of the room, completely relaxed, Kyle with a huge smile on his face and Star with a frown; Kate, sitting on one of the beds, her arms crossed and the oddest expression on her face; that infernal machine Connor had been messing around with for weeks now, at the centre of the room; and in front of it - Connor and another man, _playing a video game_. 

“Get him!” the man had shouted, and now that her heart was slowing back to its normal pace and she could breathe again, she could recognise there was excitement in the voice. And Connor - he had a huge smile plastered all over his face as he manipulated his animated figure to the rescue.

“Gotcha, you son of a bitch!” he shouted in victory as an alien exploded on the screen. 

She could have _killed_ the lot of them. “What’s going on?!” she demanded.

“They’re playing _video games_ ,” Kate said, her arms still crossed, but an odd, amused note in her voice.

“Connor just got that thing fixed,” Kyle added. “This is so cool.”

“Well, at least he hasn’t spent the past three weeks doing nothing.” 

Kyle just shrugged and turned his attention back to the game. To Blair’s surprise, Star took a step closer to the stranger who was playing with Connor.

Another moment, and Connor’s game character died a terrible death on the small screen. He took off his hands from the repaired console, his smile disappearing little by little as he stepped away from the game. By the time he turned back to the rest of them, he looked as serious as ever. But instead of saying something to Kate or Kyle, he stared at Blair. 

“There’s someone here I thought you might like to see,” he said.

“Who?” she asked.

And then the other man spoke.

“Wanna see a magic trick?”

Marcus.

For the longest of times, no one said a word. Kyle still had that smirk on his face, and reminded Blair so much of that seventeen-year-old boy she had met all those years ago; Star was still frowning, as if trying to understand something - most likely, trying to understand how was it possible that a dead man had returned from the grave; Blair couldn’t think of anything to say. 

“You know, this isn’t exactly how I imagined this reunion would go,” Marcus said jokingly to her. She didn’t move an inch. “Am I missing something here? Is this some sort of - what year is it, anyway?”

Instead of replying, Blair aimed her gun, directly at him - directly at _it_.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Connor moved all of a sudden, placing himself between Blair and Marcus, and all she wanted to say was _get out of the way_! “Put that thing down. He’s real.”

“He’s a Terminator.”

“He’s on our side.”

Blair didn’t lower her gun.

“Blair, listen to me. Years ago, you were the one who looked at him and said he’s human. And you were right. Now I’m asking you to trust me. He’s human. He’s one of us. He’s real.” 

She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. But Connor looked convinced, and if there was anyone she could trust about this, wasn’t it Connor? She could believe him. She’d done it long enough. Blair lowered her gun, still confused, then stared at Marcus.

“How?”

*****

“You look the same.”

He did. He hadn’t aged a day - of course he wouldn’t, Blair knew somewhere, deep inside. He was manufactured. A Terminator. He would always look the same. 

“Yeah, looking good for a fifty-year-old, no?”

“Mmm. I can see the wrinkles.” She touched his face. It felt real. Felt human. She moved her hand to his heart. “Still beating strong.”

“That’s the way I usually prefer it.”

Blair shot a quick look at Connor, who was talking quietly to Kate in the other room, then returned her attention to Marcus.

“So, what?” she asked. “Skynet manufactured you again? Sent you here?”

“You think they’ll make that mistake twice?”

“Who then?”

Marcus didn’t answer. Instead, he started playing with her hair. Maybe something in her expression reflected her annoyance, as he smiled his most charming smile and shrugged. “Let’s not talk about this now. Let’s talk about something more fun.”

“Like?”

“You.”

“I’m... still alive.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” she nodded, then laughed. He laughed with her. 

She liked the sound of his voice. 

“How’s the war going?”

“Didn’t Connor tell you?”

“Not yet.”

Ah. So maybe Connor didn’t trust him completely? “He’s the one to ask. I’m just following orders.”

“Rescuing civilians, flying airplanes, stuff like that?” Now there was annoyance in his voice. She pretended she didn’t notice.

“Stuff like that, yeah. We’re running out of airplanes, though.”

“Maybe you should build new ones.”

“Maybe whoever sent you here should have given you an airplane.”

Now it was his turn to stare at Connor and Kate in the other room. 

“Is this how it’s going to be?” she asked when the silence became too much to bear. “You die, I move on, you come back? Because, you know, I could do without this shit.”

"I'm planning on staying a while this time," he said, distracted, as he looked at the Connors for just a moment longer. Then Marcus turned to her, mock surprise on his face. “Wait, what d’you mean, ‘you move on’?”

*******

_I can’t even begin to imagine the world you will live in. I can still remember Kyle’s stories, how he described that world. I can’t imagine living in it._

_How long will we have together? I don’t know. It didn’t sound like Kyle had ever met me. Maybe I’m dead in the future. Maybe the Machines kill me. Is this the reason you became the leader in the first place? Or did you already have these tapes? When I taught you everything - will teach you everything - I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore._

_I hope you will be better in this than I am. For humanity’s sake._

*****

Kyle let out a low whistle as he examined the now abandoned games console. “My dad told me about these,” he said, almost to himself.

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I don’t remember myself, I mean, I think we had something before Judgement Day, I have these memories, you know, something in the living room, but maybe it was just the TV. I don’t remember anything as big as this.”

“No, there were smaller ones, we had them, too,” Kate remembered all of a sudden. She hadn’t thought of her parents’ home in years. What was the point, she thought at times. But there was a point. There was a point in remembering how life used to be, back before the Machines took over. That’s what she always pointed out to John. If they were going to get their world back, they should remember how it used to be. “A _Nintendo_ or something, it was called.”

“Yeah, but what did your father tell you?” John asked, the eagerness slightly too pronounced in his voice. To Kate’s surprise, it didn’t seem as if Kyle had even noticed it.

“Well, after Judgement day, he taught me how to shoot the Machines, right? And he always said it was like video games, like shooting aliens on the screen. We used to play games like that when we went looking for food, he’d give me five points if I made it to the end of the street fast enough, stuff like that.”

“He sounds cool,” John said quietly, but Kyle heard. The most ridiculous, proud smile came to his face, and Kate could have sworn his chest had swollen with pride. 

“He was.” Star joined the conversation. “He saved me after my parents died.”

“Taught you how to eat coyote,” Kyle said.

“Too bad he didn’t teach you how to _cook_ coyote,” she retorted, and he threw his jacket at her, which she caught deftly with one hand and put on herself pointedly. 

“Hey, hey, give me my jacket back!” 

Kate’s eyes caught John. he wasn’t smiling. He was looking at Kyle and Star, almost mesmerised. They didn’t notice, of course; they just kept messing around, brother and sister almost, a family - John’s family, but they would never know. He refused to tell them.

“What about you?” Kyle, who had regained possession of his jacket, turned back to John.

“What?” John shook his head. He had not expected the question.

“What about your dad, Connor?”

“He died. Long ago. Before I was born.”

“Oh.” Kyle and Star looked at one other, slightly embarrassed, not sure what to say. 

“A long time ago,” John repeated. Quietly, Kate put her hand in his. He pressed her hand, but didn’t meet her gaze. 

Another second, and the moment was gone - Barnes walked into the room, all business and anger, and John was himself again, Leader of the Resistance.

“Are we going to trust it?” Barnes jerked his head towards the door, distaste written all over his face.

In the other room, Marcus was sitting at Blair’s side. Talking, one hand on her shoulder, the other in her hair, he had that self-assured smile Kate could still remember, even though it had been years since she saw him last.

“He came through the last time,” she said.

“Yeah, but he also died the last time. Skynet could have reprogrammed it. Assume we’d trust it.”

His words hit home. Wasn’t that what the Terminator had told them, all those years ago? Wasn’t that how John - no. She refused to think about it. No fate. 

She didn’t need to see the expression on John’s face to know he was thinking the exact same thing.

“He saved our asses out there,” John said in the end. 

“Didn’t save Tony’s ass.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“No, it was _your_ fault.” 

Barnes’ voice carried over to the next room. Blair jumped to her feet and walked into the room; Marcus, now silent, walked in after her. Star looked from Barnes to John, from John to Barnes, and back again. Kyle just looked mortified. 

John was already shouting back.

*****

“What happened?”

They were finally alone. All the shouting had stopped, the blame-flinging, the daily ritual of despair and anger. Now it was just the two of them - Kate and John and the rest of the world could go to hell. At least until the morning.

John sat down on the bed heavily. “I messed up,” he said simply. She sat down next to him and considered his words.

 _I messed up_... Only an hour ago he was shouting at Barnes for saying the same thing, shouting at Marcus that he had no idea what was going on and what they were facing and to keep out of it, and shouting at no one, or perhaps at himself, because of a mission that had cost twenty lives and that he couldn’t explain to anyone but Kate.

“They don’t know,” she tried. “They don’t understand why it’s so important we capture a Terminator. You can’t blame them for not understanding.”

“I know.”

“You could tell them.”

“No.”

She bit her lip, stopping the words she wanted to say. “John. They need to understand.”

He laughed, that bitter laughter she hated so much. “What? That we have information from the future? Time travel? I don’t understand that shit, and I’ve known it since I was born.”

“No, not the time travel.” Blair’s expression came to her mind, the way she lowered her gun because John had told her it was all right. “But they need to believe in you, and you haven’t been doing such a good job of that lately. This resistance, it isn’t just about getting the next Terminator. You know this, John, you’ve been doing it for long enough. It’s about inspiring them to get the Terminator after that. It’s about inspiring them to _live_. Don’t you remember that?”

He didn’t answer. He just buried his head between his hands and sat there, in silence. She moved her hand, touched his shoulder, and all of a sudden he spoke. 

“It was easier when I was just a soldier, you know?”

“They still believed in you back then.”

“Yes, but I didn’t have to make the calls.” He raised his head now to look at her. “Kate, I’m not a commander. I never trained for this. You know that. What do I know?” he laughed his bitter laughter again. “I know how to survive, because that’s what my mother taught me. I know how to fight Skynet. I’m not - this war, it’s supposed to be over soon. I want to see my daughter grow up. I want to see her live in a world without Machines and I want to see her start her own family and I...”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. The war was supposed to be over, soon enough, and even though twenty years have passed, they both remembered the Terminator’s story, how he told them who sent him back in time - and why.

“No fate, remember?” she whispered. “Nothing is set in stone.”

But tonight, even that wasn’t enough to cheer him up. Tonight, that only earned more bitterness. “Yeah. No fate,” he said, then shook his head. “No guarantee I _am_ that victorious leader of the resistance, but I’m still the most wanted human on the planet and they have all their Terminators out there, looking for me.” 

He kicked his shoes off, one by one, took off the smelly jacket and threw it on the floor, then finally looked at her again. “I’m not getting out of this thing alive, am I.”

Her hand trailed to the old scars, where the Terminator had punched through his heart, and later, the ones from the surgery. “You are if I have any say in this,” she said. “I’m too young to be a widow.”

Finally, his laughter was real - surprising, unexpected, and heartfelt. “I messed up your life, didn’t I?” he said, and the bitterness was still in his voice, but subsided, slowly giving its way to warmth.

“Well, less you, more Skynet,” she said. She was encouraged to see his smile didn’t falter, even if his eyes turned colder at the mention of Skynet. 

“Computer matchmaking,” he muttered. For a moment she stared at him in disbelief, then they both burst out in laughter.

*****

“Kate!”

Kate sighed, closed the backpack, and turned around. Blair. 

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on?” 

Kate arranged her face into a puzzled expression. She had a very strong suspicion that she knew exactly what Blair was talking about, but she wasn’t going to bring it up herself. After all, she could be wrong.

“I heard Connor’s going to try it again. Capture a Terminator.”

She _really_ had hoped she was wrong. Oh, well. 

“Yeah,” she said briefly, and returned to the backpack, hoping Blair would go away. “It’s a volunteer mission, though, we won’t ask anyone to risk themselves like that again. Stay here with Marcus.”

“Actually, we’re both going.” 

The earnestness on Blair’s face, the conviction... Sure, they weren’t ordering anyone to go, they were all volunteering. Except they weren’t. Not as long as they kept believing in John.

Blair went on, oblivious. “I mean, it’s completely crazy, and I still don’t understand what you’re going to _do_ with a Terminator once you’ve captured one, but if you’re going, I’m going.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that,” Blair agreed. “Well, that and Marcus insists that he has to go and I’m not going to stay behind and let him get all the glory,” Blair laughed, and then her face turned all serious again. “Why _are_ we capturing a Terminator, Kate?”

“We talked about it in the briefing for the previous mission, and - ”

“ - And I didn’t believe that bullshit back then, either. I’ve been doing this long enough, Kate, Terminators don’t have access to the Skynet database. Also, Connor’s a terrible liar, you really should take over the briefing when you’re pulling stunts like that.”

Kate considered this for a moment. “If you know we’re lying,” she asked in the end, “why are you coming? Hardly anyone made it the last time.”

“Because you think it’s important. And because Connor’s going to defeat the Machines, and I’d rather die doing that than die trying to hide from them.”

“Yeah.”

“But I’d still like to know _why_ I’m risking my life. This time, anyway.”

“Did you ask Marcus?” 

“Marcus? What does he know?”

“Did you ask Marcus?” Kate asked again. 

Blair studied her for a moment. “No,” she said.

“He’s manufactured by Skynet, but someone had to be there to reprogram him, to send him to us.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“No,” Kate said. “I’m absolutely sure he’s on our side.”

“Then who reprogrammed him?”

“I did. Probably.”

Blair stood in front of her completely still, saying nothing. They stared at each other in silence for another moment.

“Skynet invented something else - besides Terminators, I mean,” Kate said at last. “Time travel.”

“Time travel,” Blair repeated, disbelief in her voice, and started laughing. Started - but immediately stopped. They knew each other long enough. Kate knew that Blair could recognise that she was absolutely serious. Another moment’s silence, and then - 

“Time travel.” At last, Blair shook her head. “ _Time travel_. Well, at least that explains the whole prophecy thing, then.”

Kate didn’t say a word.

“Must be nice, though,” Blair continued. “I mean, you and Connor already know you’re going to win this war. You know you’re going to survive. The rest of us...”

Perhaps Kate turned her head too fast. Perhaps not fast enough. Something in her reaction gave it away. She could hear Blair’s hitched breath as she stared intently at her backpack again.

“Connor?” Blair asked, and there was hesitation in her voice, almost fear. Oh, yes. Blair had always been a believer. 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Kate said. What else was there to say?

*****

_I’ve learned how to use guns and pistols and rifles, everything that can be used to maim or kill or destroy. I will teach you everything I know._

_But you’ll need something more, John. Your father talked about you with such reverence. It was months ago, but I still remember the look in his eyes. You inspired him. You’ll inspire all of them. That’s what he said._

_If you are going to be the one who will win the war against Skynet, you’ll have to be more than a soldier. You’ll have to be a leader, too. I hope I can teach you how to do that. I hope I can prepare you enough. Some days it feels like that would be the easy part. Some days it feels like the hardest._

_Some days I wonder if that’s something you’ll have to learn from someone else._

*****

Three bullets, straight to the head, but the thing kept on coming. Kate reached for the bigger gun, tried to hit the eye socket, but either she missed or Skynet had improved their models again, because it did no good, the Terminator kept on progressing, and the last thing on her mind at the moment was how to _capture_ it.  
She wasn’t going to make it. She fumbled for the radio, to warn them, to tell them, even though she knew the rest were probably facing the exact same problem.

And then, everything went still.

A moment’s notice, a split second when everything was quite and nothing was moving and no sound could be heard. That was all of the warning Kate had. But she already knew those signs well enough. For civilians, they were no warnings at all, but she didn’t need anything more. 

She rolled under the rocks, breathing heavily, and disappeared from sight just as the big HK bombed the area once again and inferno reigned, the kind that even Terminators couldn’t survive. She hid her face from the fire, from the smoke, and waited.

When the fire subsided, she moved - just an inch, half an inch, and then some - trying to see if the big flying Machine was gone, or coming back for another round. 

There was no sign of the Machine in sight.

Kate didn’t move. She didn’t use her radio. She didn’t try to find the others. Not yet. Those bastards were smart. 

“Kate? Are you there? Kate?!” Star’s voice came out of the radio. _Damn_ , Kate cursed. Too soon, too soon. She couldn’t blame Star - she might have been the youngest of them, but she knew the Machines up close and personal, just like the rest of them. She was too young for this. 

“Here,” she whispered into the radio, even though whisper or shout, it didn’t matter. If the Machines were tracking the signal, they both just gave themselves away. “Radio silence, five minutes,” she added. Ridiculous precaution - either they didn’t need it, or it didn’t matter. Either the Machines were gone and they could come out, or the Machines had already tracked them down. And still... radio silence.

Another five full minutes of waiting.

The worst thing about waiting, Kate had discovered a long time ago, was not the fact she had time to think and worry. No, she _always_ worried, always hated to be alone with her thoughts, whether it was during a mission or at night in her bed. No, the worst thing about waiting was that she knew that eventually, the wait will be over.

She could stay like that forever. Half hidden, one eye at the sky, _knowing_ John was still alive and she will see him again. Reality was still five minutes away.

Four minutes... two... “This is Connor, report.”

Kate breathed again.

“Kate Connor, sector one-three-four.”

“Star, sector one-seven-two.”

“Barnes, sector one-oh-five.”

“Kyle Reese, sector one-five-seven!”

Silence.

“Williams, are you there?” John’s voice came again through the radio. “Williams!”

No answer.

“Williams!”

Kate got there first, Star closely behind with Kyle. Last were John and Barnes - The red on John’s uniform was now smeared with real blood, and he was limping and leaning on Barnes. Before she had time to look at him, he shook his head and gestured forward, and then she noticed it too.

A movement, right at the centre of the area that had otherwise been completely incinerated by the HKs. A smouldering mass of - then she realised what she was seeing. Blair, still alive, protected by Marcus, who had given his life yet again, this time for her. The steel in his body was enough to stop the worse of the flames from getting to her. 

Kate rushed towards Blair. “Help me get her out!” she shouted at Star and Kyle, while Barnes called for a chopper to extract them, get them back to base. 

By the time the helicopter got there, Kate had managed to stabilise Blair. By the time they made it to the base, she knew Blair would make it. By the time she had the chance to look at the gash on John’s leg, Blair had opened her eyes. 

They didn’t tell her about Marcus; not yet. “Maybe he’ll show up again,” John said, and he looked hopefully at the door before his gaze met hers and they both rolled their eyes at each other. _Time travel_.

“How is she?” Kate jumped at the unexpected voice - Barnes.

“She’ll be alright.”

Barnes hesitated a moment before he turned to John.

“And you?”

John stood up, testing his wounded leg, and contorted his face in pain. “I’ll live,” he said shortly.

“You better. We can’t have you dying on us. Who’ll get rid of the machines then?”

“Kate, obviously,” John said, his face not quite reflecting the smile on Barnes’.

“Yeah, some of these days I don’t know why we’re bothering with you at all.” 

Kate couldn’t help but smile, even if her smile was bittersweet, even if, for her, there really was no humour in this situation. She walked to John, put her hand in his, and squeezed it hard. He squeezed her hand back, trying to reassure her. _No fate_ , he whispered in her ear. _Right?_

She didn’t look at him. Instead, her eyes were glued to the door in a hope beyond hope.

*******

Lightning and wind and noise; the machine finally died down. The room sank into silence again.

Blair shook her head. “Unbelievable,” she said.

But Kate knew - the moment she had sent Marcus, the moment the machine worked, she _knew_. Her hand jumped automatically to the ring on the chain around her neck, identical to the one on her finger, the one she refused to take off.

“We messed up,” she said. “We sent him to the wrong time.”

“Yeah,” Star agreed quietly from the corner. “I remember too. He arrived too early.”

Kate had to stop herself from screaming. For just a moment, one glorious moment, she actually believed she could do this, change the past. That she would send Marcus back and then, just like that, turn to find John, standing there next to her, as if nothing had ever happened. The constant grief that was always a step away threatened to engulf her completely. She messed up. John was still dead.

Kate sat on the time machine heavily. The metal surface hummed softly beneath her. 

She realised it at the same time as Blair and Star. The three of them stared at each other, and a smile found its way to her face. 

The future isn’t set, wasn’t that what John always said? No fate but what we make. 

Now she knew what he meant. She could try again.


End file.
